We Vacationed like a local in Malaysia! (4 things to do)

We Vacationed like a local in Malaysia! (4 things to do)

Welcome back to another beautiful day of Malaysia. Do you notice anything a little bit different about us? That’s right. We’re taking a break, just like Malaysians do. And we’ve traveled to the Cameron Highlands to escape the heat and humidity. What else was I supposed to say? That sounded pretty good. Let’s go.

This area is known primarily for four things. Tea plantations, strawberry farms. I’ve never had spicy strawberries before. Hiking and gardens. Beautiful flowers. So those are the things that we’re planning to do today. We have places picked out for each of those four things, starting with a tea plantation.

One of the reasons that we chose this tea plantation in particular is that I read online that you can walk among the tea plantation, among the tea leaves, bushes, trees. Trees. They’re trees. And we really wanted to be able to do that.

So for a four ringgit, you can wander among the tea plantation or you can pay a little bit more and be driven around in some kind of tram. We choose walking, although there’s a lot of stairs, but this is going to be beautiful. I’m excited. So beautiful here. I love the rolling hills.

It’s hard to believe this is all tea. They have ice cream and snacks down at the bottom in the valley, but we are here for the tea, so we’re going to head back up and have some of that, which means Bill does not get any of the

Ice cream from this cool ice cream truck. He’s going to be upset. Well, we made it back up and while we were here, we had to try some of the tea. This is tea tariq or teh tariq. I’m not exactly sure how it’s pronounced,

But it’s a black tea with at least milk in it and maybe some sugar. I’m going to try it first. It smells really good. It’s very good. It’s nice and smooth. It’s maybe just a bit too sugary for my taste, so I’m definitely not adding more.

Just tastes like an amazingly smooth milk tea. It’s really delicious. We know this area is known for its strawberry production, but we’re saving all things strawberry until we visit an actual strawberry farm later on. So we’re trying some carrot cake. I’m so excited. Oh, that’s really good. That is delicious.

In my American opinion, it could do with a little bit more frosting because the frosting is so good, but the cake itself is tender and juicy because of so many carrots. There’s a little bit of nut in there. It’s very cinnamony, much more than I’m used to, and I really, really like that.

I also got a black orange tea without milk or sugar. I like my tea just black. It smells really good. It’s so nice and smooth with a mellow orange flavor. It’s delicious. I think we might have to bring some of this or other teas back home with us for ourselves

And some family members. It’s amazing. Durian? Tea? Well, visiting the tea plantation was fun, and that was a great warm up for the little hike that we have planned next. That was a very poorly timed… Okay, there are a lot of windy roads if you come to the Cameron Highlands. Bill’s loving it.

This is fun! Anyhow, we are on our way now to do a hike. There’s supposed to be a little bit of rain later today, so hopefully we can beat it. We do not have the best of histories when it comes to hiking and rain. I’ve been sprinklered.

We thought we could make it back in time. We got cocky. We love hiking, but we don’t have the right equipment for hiking in the rainy season in Malaysia. So we are just doing a quick loop called the Coral Hill Loop. It shouldn’t take us very long. It’s drizzling a little bit.

There’s a break in the clouds, so we think we’re going to take advantage of the opportunity and just go. Everything here is so green because it rains a lot. Let’s see if we get some good views on this shore hike. I don’t know, we might be on the wrong trail.

This seems to be some gardens or somebody’s mini farm or actual farm. We’re going to head back down and see if there’s another entry point. Well, after consulting the map and backtracking a little bit, I think we are on the right path I’m sure the people who are out working the

Fields will let us know if we’re in the right spot. Or maybe I should say the wrong spot. Adventure. The field worker gave us the go ahead. We are in the right place. And this is indeed a trail. Right through their fields. I love it. So much cabbage.

It’s all over in the distance too. All that is cabbage. Cabbage. Cabbage. More cabbage. Lots more cabbage. Oh my gosh. Oh, and these might be green beans. I think we’re glad that we have our pants on because I think the trail goes through here and then to the right. Oh, nope.

It goes here. Oh, what have we done? It’s hard to see, but I think… That’s a trail. Adventure. It’ll be great. Do you see a trail? Yeah. For real? Yeah. There’s a trail here. Oh, God. This is a great point for me to mention that there are poisonous trees in Malaysia whose

Sap can practically kill you or make you wish you were dead because it stings for months and for some people a year. Apparently the ipoh tree for which the city of the Ipoh is named is like that. There’s probably some other ones too. I don’t know if they’re in this forest.

Do I touch the tree? Do I not touch the tree? Ah. Okay, a little bit more proper trail through here. There’s a rope on this section that’s a little bit less sturdy but anchored nicely to the tree up ahead. This is quite the scramble up this mountain. Wow. Oh, there’s Bill.

This tree is at chest height. Oh, God. He touched a tree. He touched a tree. He got stuck. No, stuck was not the problem. Slipped in the mud and nearly fell on my head. That would have been the problem. I made it though. Oh, God. Oh, man. What?

Whoa. This is a muddy, muddy mess. We are following a version of this trail that I found on the AllTrails app which shows it as a loop. And one of the comments said to make sure that you go in the direction that’s on AllTrails because it’s straight up at the beginning

But then it’s sort of more gradual afterwards. On other places, I’ve seen this done as an out and back and I would not want to go back down what we just came up, especially in the mud. It’s just a little bit too dangerous.

It’s much easier to go up when you have muddy and wet conditions like this. All that said, maybe we’re out of the mud for a bit. This is a very adventurous trail. Under. Nice. I don’t think that’s the way we go. I think it’s this way which is straight up. Straight up.

Oh, my gosh. I think we made it. I think we made it to the top. We did. We did. Oh, my gosh. There’s a flag. We got to go to the flag. I did not expect there to be a cool flag., along with some thunder in the distance.

At the peak of this climb. This is a great finish. It’s very dramatic for us. Worth it. Come on. We’ll grab it together. Yeah! I’m going to give you a careful 360 of what I see. From the top, I’m standing at the flagpole. The thunder is coming from way out there.

We’re almost back to where we began. So this is the ridge that we just walked on. There is a view up here in quite literally every direction. It’s beautiful. It’s just green as far as the eye can see and greenhouses. We are surrounded by green and greenhouses. It’s beautiful.

Sometimes hikes don’t have a payoff at the midway point or the highest point. This one has a payoff. That’s amazing. It was worth the scrambles. It was worth the mud, which was a lot of mud. We still have to go back down.

The loop route has us continuing past the flag and down from there. Hopefully, it’s a little bit easier going than it was on the way up. What is this? It’s two inches long. It’s a giant striped bug. It’s massive. It’s juicy. What the heck? Yeah. Going down. Not too quickly though.

Well, after exploring a few downhill options, we have decided to go back the way we came and not do this as a loop because we are going to be smart about this and go with what we know instead of getting lost on a mountain and we can see some rain coming in.

We’re hungry and want to move on to strawberries. We’ll see you down at the bottom. Strawberries! I have never been so damn happy to see cabbage again in my life. We took a number of false starts to try to find the trail that we had originally come up. We found it again.

We are almost at the bottom. We are back at our trusty Malaysian steed. Bill is very excited about the car that we rented. Take it away, Bill. We wanted to get the full Malaysian experience. And so we have a Perodua Axia. It’s very small, very efficient and does the job.

And I’ve never been more hungry for all the strawberry things in my life. It’s mid-afternoon. All we’ve had today is that carrot cake we had earlier. We’re driving through our greenhouse. What? They’re very parking ahead. Yes, there is. We made it to the strawberries. So far, I have a souvenir of sorts that

I’m wearing from everything we’ve done today. I’m wearing a fair amount of mud now. Let’s see what strawberries bring. Wow, am I exhausted. That was so hard. Did you all see him pretending to have pep in his step? Come on. He’s just as tired as I am. This is amazing.

I just want to note real quick that we are here in between strawberry seasons. So I’m not expecting to see any strawberries actually on any vines anywhere. We are mainly here to eat as many strawberry things as we can.

And I feel like it’s going to be a lot because I mean, we are very hungry. How many strawberry things can one person order? It turns out that we have so many things that we want to order that we’re going to do it in stages.

So the first stage is what we’re going to call the main course. It’s questionable as to its health. It’s not a very good main course. We got a scone for Bill to try and strawberry rojak for me to try.

We have no idea what rojak is, but it looked like it might be savory. So that’s why it’s the main course and a strawberry juice, which I’m really excited about. The strawberry roe jak is first. It’s covered in nuts and it has a glaze at the bottom that maybe is balsamic? Soy?

I’m not going to know until I get in there. So let’s get in there. What the heck? The strawberries are spicy. Oh, what? That is different. Let’s try the strawberry juice. Mmm. Ah, that is so good. So I still don’t know what strawberry rojak is, but I can tell you that for somebody

Who doesn’t do all with spice, it’s a little bit spicy, which is a surprise. It sort of tastes a little bit like curry? No. I’ve never had spicy strawberries before. That is really different. I have no idea what the brown sauce is. Is it Indian? Is it curry?

I genuinely have no idea whatsoever. The nuts on top are delicious. The strawberries themselves taste really fresh, but spicy. And it’s the first time I’ve had spicy strawberries. Glad I got my strawberry juice. We also got some tea from the Boh Plantation, which is also popular here locally.

You’re interfering with my next round of strawberries. Oh, okay. For round two, we got some french fries, which sadly do not come with strawberry ketchup. A missed opportunity, I think. Add some deep fried strawberry ice cream, and Bill got something that looks like a strawberry popsicle, but claims it’s ice cream.

We shall see. We’re going to start with the deep fried ice cream. I had something similar to this in Taiwan, which was freshly fried, and so it was hot on the outside. And to this day, I think it’s the best dessert I’ve ever had. It’s so good.

This one feels more like it was deep fried, not just now, but it still could be amazing. Let’s find out. Mmm. It’s melty. I love the texture difference in these fried ice creams, where you have the soft ice cream in the center and the crispy dough on the outside.

The one in Taiwan was a little bit better because it was so fresh. But the strawberry ice cream in this one is unbelievably strawberry flavored. I mean, it like smacks of strawberries. It’s such a good ice cream. I really, really love the center of this. Mmm.

I’ve been promised this is Malaysian ice cream. I’m a bit skeptical. I’ve been looking for ice cream all day. I love ice cream. It looks good, but it just doesn’t look like ice cream or what I would call ice cream. That’s really good, actually.

It is not ice cream or not what I would call ice cream. It’s more like what we would call in the U.S., a popsicle. They also had something else in the ice chest that they did call a popsicle. So anyway, I don’t know what’s what.

But, it has a very strong, nice strawberry taste. And it’s not too hard frozen, if that makes any sense. It’s easy to bite into. It’s good. The whole time that we were filming our strawberry stuff, this song was playing in the background. And this song has been playing over and over

And over on repeat for the last like 45 minutes. This song. And it just starts over, over and over. For like, yeah, we’ve been here for an hour. If you appreciate that that is in our heads now, hit the like button in the subscribe below because I think having that playing

In the background very loudly has earned it. I would not call what we just did a meal, but it was still a lot of fun. What was your favorite, Bill? Probably and I don’t remember the name already, but the spicy strawberry rojek. Yes, the spicy strawberry rojek.

Just because it was something so different than either of us have ever had. The strawberry juice was probably my favorite. Just give me the strawberries and nothing else. And don’t give them to your husband because I didn’t get to try any. Oops!

Anyhow, we better be going to our next spot on that note. I think we still have time to make it to the garden, so we’re going to head there now. And this is the wrong side of the car. Good morning. Yes, I did say good morning. It is the next day.

We arrived at the garden last night and they told us we did not have enough time to go through it, which was kind of a bummer. We were looking forward to it, but we found a different one and it’s the next morning.

First thing, we have just enough time to go through a garden. Perhaps a nod to the Dutch past or maybe just windmills are cool. So far we’ve just been enjoying the pond area that’s immediately on the inside of this park and all of the flowers that are surrounding me.

And it’s really peaceful first thing in the morning. We got here right when they opened at 8 o’clock and it’s us and just a handful of people. I did not expect to see this while we were in the Highlands. I did not think there would be one at this garden.

What am I talking about? Okay, the statue might be a clue. Carnivorous plants. There are insect eating plants here in this garden and I did not think we’d get to see some on this trip. I had kind of given up on it and I was so excited they’re here.

I just don’t think I’ve ever seen them in person before. This is so cool. It’s like a giant statue of one. There are tons of the pods behind me. So if you haven’t heard of these before, these are carnivorous but they’re not going to eat your finger. Feed me seymour.

Instead insects will sort of fall into them and the sap of the cup, the pod, will trap the insect and then break it down over time and that is what feeds the plant. It’s really unique. So it’s sort of known as a flesh-eating plant

Or a man-eating plant but it’s a bit of a misnomer because really they just eat insects and they’re not harmful to human beings. And again, I don’t think I’ve ever seen them before. I’m a little bit nerding out about it. It’s really cool.

I’ve never seen this plant before but its buds sort of look like berries. I love the color. I have officially found my favorite plant in the world. I’ve never seen it before today. I have no idea what it is. Look at the colors of this. It’s aqua and purple.

Two of the best colors in one plant. It’s kind of a viney plant hanging down. It doesn’t really have a scent but wow, the colors are magnificent. I didn’t know that these colors existed together in nature like this. It really is spectacular. I’m just kind of speechless by the color to be honest.

It’s beautiful and you can tell how big it is because my head is right here for scale. Wow. They have a strawberry area here too, but they’re just for purchase, not for wandering through or picking or anything like that. But don’t miss it because there’s a super cool umbrella section.

Who doesn’t love a bunch of umbrellas hanging above them? It’s so picturesque. These umbrellas have strawberries on the undersides. Best umbrellas. Thank you so much for coming along with us while we attempted to vacation like a local. Let us know what we missed down in the

Comments. We had an amazing time in Cameron Highlands. We could have spent one more day in this region exploring all that it has to offer, but I’m glad that we had the time that we did. We have so much more to come on Malaysia. Subscribe

So you don’t miss it, and we’ll see you next time. Thank you. Bye!

We admit that the heat was impressive in Malaysia in July. There was only one option! We rented a car in Ipoh and drove to the Cameron Highlands in search of cooler weather. We had a great time vacationing like a local, doing what Malaysians do in the Highlands! We visited a tea plantation, did an ambitious hike, enjoyed strawberries, and saw some very unique flowers.

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In case you like skipping around:
00:00 What the Highlands are known for
00:40 Tea Plantation
02:57 Trying the tea
05:15 Coral Loop Hike
07:12 Poisonous trees?!
09:35 Reaching the summit
11:44 Happy cabbage
12:35 Strawberry Farm
13:35 Trying strawberry dishes!
17:08 Filming challenges
18:30 Agro Technology Park MARDI
19:30 Carniverous plants!
21:00 My favorite plant in the world
22:18 Don’t miss this!

#malaysia #travel #cameronhighlands
#malaysiatravel #malaysiavlog

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